Henry’s weight pressed her into the couch just enough for Cara to feel secure without being suffocated. That was Henry in a nutshell—safe but exciting. She smiled against his lips at the thought before getting lost in the feel of him again. With his mouth on hers, she could forget about everything outside their cozy cabin. It felt like the two of them were the only people in the world at the moment.
A muted roar followed by a sharp cracking sound yanked Cara out of her kiss-induced tunnel vision. Henry turned to look at the woodstove, where the fire blazed ferociously for a few seconds—fueled by the gust of wind down the stovepipe—before settling back down to a flickering smolder.
There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, Cara thought, torn between irritation that the noise had interrupted the most intense kiss she’d ever experienced and relief. Things were already so messy. They didn’t need to throw another container of gasoline on the raging dumpster fire that was their current situation, no matter how amazing that fire had felt.
Henry turned his attention back to her, and their mouths were suddenly too temptingly close together. Catching her rogue gaze focusing on his lips, she yanked her focus back to his eyes, which were another issue. The blue that was normally glacially cold burned like the hottest flame, and she felt warmth rushing to her face—and other parts of her body that were already overheated.
She wasn’t sure where to look, so she settled on right above his eyes. There couldn’t possibly be anything sexy about eyebrows. “Umm…” Her brain hunted for something—anything—to say, but all she could concentrate on was how incredible his lips had felt against hers. His forehead creased, and his eyebrows pulled together, his silence continuing until she couldn’t help but meet his eyes again, needing to know what he was thinking. As soon as she did, she wished she’d just kept kissing him, because the hot hunger in his gaze was quickly being replaced by resignation. He closed his eyes and sighed.
“Yeah, you’re right.” He moved away from her, and she pushed up to sitting, drawing her legs in closer to her chest. Instead of sitting next to her on the couch, he moved to the armchair. Even though the practical part of her knew that this was best, she still hated how cold she felt without his huge body pressing her so securely into the cushions.
Cara blinked as his words finally registered. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re thinking that we shouldn’t have done that.”
Her first instinct was to argue, but that logical part of her brain had been telling her how stupid getting physically involved with Kavenski would be. Even though the rest of her was screaming at the reasonable part to be quiet and let her enjoy their explosive chemistry, she couldn’t deny that going any farther—or even just continuing the kiss—would be monumentally dumb. Her tumbling thoughts and conflicting emotions kept her quiet.
Henry dipped his chin as if agreeing with something she didn’t say. “Like I said, you’re right. You’re already much too involved in my mess.” He stood abruptly. “We should get some sleep. Expect an early start tomorrow.”
“Okay.” The mention of sleep set off a whole new avalanche of heated mental images, but she tried to hide the direction of her thoughts. “I’ll stay down here. You can have the bed upstairs.”
He frowned at her. “It’s going to be hot this close to the stove.”
“I’ll be fine.” Despite her words, she could already feel the radiating heat baking her skin. It’s just residual kissing heat, she assured herself. As soon as he leaves the room, I’ll cool down again.
“Don’t be stupid,” he said. She glared at him, but he just scowled right back and continued, “You’re going to cook down here.”
She opened her mouth and closed it again as too many responses ran through her head, her thoughts jumbling before they could make it out of her mouth. If she kept protesting, she’d sound like she was being stubborn for no reason or, even worse, make it obvious how much she wanted him. Finally, she just threw up her hands. “Fine.”
His glare still in place, he hesitated for a moment, as if he hadn’t expected her to give in so easily. She hid a tiny smile, glad she was able to throw him off-balance, even if just for a moment. Quickly, he seemed to shake it off and headed over to add more logs to the fire.
“Want some water?” she asked, heading to the kitchen and opening cupboards until she found a couple of water bottles.
“Sure. Thank you.” Again, there was a tension-filled pause, making her wonder if he was feeling as tempted as she was. A glance at his closed-off expression made her quickly dismiss the crazy thought. Henry Kavenski never lost his cool, rational head—at least not while she’d been around.
At the sink, she filled and capped the water bottles, and she decided to make it her personal mission to get Henry to lose a little bit of his self-possession. Now that his facade had cracked, showing her the blazing emotions behind his mask, she wouldn’t be satisfied until she broke through completely. A wicked grin spread across her face. Of course, surviving the hike to Red Hawk tomorrow would be the priority, but if she could get an expression or two out of the man on the way, that would be a bonus.
“What?” he asked suspiciously as he accepted the filled water bottle she offered. Her smile must’ve lingered.
“Nothing.” She tried to put all the innocence she could in that one word before heading up the stairs, feeling his eyes on her back the whole way.
Once she saw the bed again, her skin prickled with renewed heat. It just looked so small, especially because Henry was so big.
“Act like an adult,” she muttered under her breath. “He’s obviously not bothered by the possibility of temptation, so you need to just suck it up and keep your hands to yourself. Of all the bad things that happened and the even worse things that could’ve happened today, having to share a bed with a hot guy in a luxurious cabin with a bathroom and a decent supply of board games does not even belong in the negatives column.”
“Are you talking to me?”
Henry’s voice was so close that she jumped a foot and a half before whirling around to see him at the top of the stairs.
“No.” Her mouth wanted to open again to spew out guilty-sounding nonsensical babble to relieve the growing pressure the situation was building inside her. Having him standing there, looking so kissable, was not helping matters. Somehow, she managed to snap her jaw closed after the one word, but that left a sizzling, almost unbearably charged silence in its wake.
His eyebrows rose a fraction in a way that looked almost amused. Reaching back, he grabbed a handful of his shirt and pulled it over his head. Before Cara could close her eyes, she had the image of Henry’s broad, hair-dusted chest imprinted onto her brain.
“A little warning next time you decide to get naked would be nice.” Her voice sounded choked to her own ears as she whirled around to face the bed. Her body heated from the inside out.
The sound he made could’ve been a scoff or a laugh or even a suggestive growl, but Cara dragged her brain away from the strip show happening behind her and tried to think about other things. She had to, or she would self-combust immediately.
“What side of the bed do you want?” As soon as the words were out, she wanted to slap a palm over her face. Why was she making this so weird? The only reason they were in this situation was because they were trying to survive, but her brain kept insisting on turning everything into a scene from a romantic comedy.
When he didn’t answer, she risked a glance at him, making sure to keep her eyes above chin level. To her relief—and disappointment—he’d pulled on a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. Both fit much too tightly, and the pants barely covered his shins, so she assumed that the original owner must be a quite a bit smaller than Henry.
He looked back and forth between the spiral stairs and the French doors leading out to the balcony. “I’ll take the side closer to the stairs,” he finally said, although he didn’t sound happy. “Too many possible points of entry into this place.”
“You weren’t complaining when you broke in earlier,” she said, placing her water bottle on the nightstand next to her side of the bed.
His scowl deepened. “Not helping.”
“Sorry.” Despite her apology, Cara had to duck her head to hide her smile. Her amusement disappeared when she glanced toward the balcony doors, however. Henry had turned the lights off downstairs, so the cabin was only lit by the fire in the woodstove. The exposed French doors somehow made things spookier. Her imagination conjured up all sorts of nightmares waiting just beyond that dark glass. Now that he’d mentioned it, she could easily picture someone scaling the balcony and breaking into the bedroom while they slept. She shivered, unable to look away.
“Get in bed.” Henry’s voice broke the frightening spell, and she turned her head from the French doors and the unknown that lay beyond them. He must’ve misread her hesitation as a reprimand for his bossiness, because his tone mellowed when he continued, “You’re cold.”
Rather than explain why she was freaked out, she took the excuse he offered and folded back the covers to reveal a bare mattress beneath. “You didn’t happen to see any sheets when you were nosing around, did you?”
Wordlessly, he turned and opened the closet, pulling a set of folded flannel sheets from the top shelf. As he brought them over, Cara pulled the covers off all the way. For some reason, she half expected him to dump the sheets on her and watch while she made the bed, but he did his part with the hospital-cornered efficiency that screamed boot camp—or nurses’ training.
As she held a pillow under her chin so she could slide a case over it, she studied him curiously. She’d investigated his background, but she’d been focusing more on the crimes he was accused of and possible places he might be hiding out. This small detail made her realize how little she actually knew about the facts of his life.
“Were you in the military?” she asked, making him pause with another pillowcase in his hand.
“Not really.”
Frowning, she said, “That’s not a good answer, as answers go.”
For that, she got an amused upward lip twitch in response, but no clarification.
“Were you trained as a nurse?” She was determined to get some answers out of the man. For as close as she felt to him, she knew very little about the details of his life.
He blinked. “As a medic, yeah. How’d you guess?”
“The hospital corners on your sheets.” She could tell he hadn’t expected that answer, and she gave herself a point for surprising him. “Plus, there’s that way you look at me when you think I might be injured. It’s clinical, but also…not.” Her skin warmed as she thought about the way his eyes blazed with concern for her whenever she was shot at or almost blown up or driven off a cliff.
He made a hmm sound, even as his gaze locked on her. The heat in his expression made her squeeze the pillow she still held to her chest.
“Yeah.” Her voice was husky. “That’s the look, except with a double helping of lust.”
A laugh burst out of him, and she gave herself a solid ten points and a high five for that.
Ducking her head to hide her pleased smile, she dropped the pillow onto the mattress and flipped the thick quilts over the newly made bed. As she climbed in, giving a little shiver at the cool flannel against her bare feet, Henry crossed the room and checked the lock on the French doors. When he turned back around, she could see he was scowling again.
“What’s wrong?” She drew the quilts up to her chin, feeling like a kid hiding under the covers from the things that went bump in the night—although Abbott’s boogeymen were all too real.
“That lock’s too…” His voice trailed off as he met her eyes, finishing with a brusque wave of his hand as if he was dismissing his concerns.
“What?” His uncharacteristic hesitance made her even more worried than she’d been before he’d answered—or hadn’t answered. “What’s wrong with the lock?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it.” When she raised her eyebrows skeptically, he relented. “It’s just not the kind I would’ve chosen if this were my place.”
She couldn’t hold back a snort.
“What?” He echoed her earlier question.
“As if you’d have French doors on your house.” He gave her a look but didn’t argue, and she grinned in triumph. “Your dream home is probably an underground bunker with enough supplies to last through a nuclear winter.”
He looked slightly put-out, but she noticed he still didn’t deny it.
“You wouldn’t even want a window, much less a French door with a piddly lock.”
“I’m fine with windows.” He sounded a bit grumpy that she’d read him so well. “As long as they have bullet-resistant glass and solid locks.”
“And bars?”
Shooting a final glare at the French doors under discussion, he circled to the other side of the bed. “No. Not crazy about bars.”
His grim expression reminded her that he’d been behind bars, at least for the short time before he’d bonded out. Her urge to tease him more about his love of home security faded, and she burrowed deeper under the covers before changing the subject. “Did you check all the doors and windows downstairs to make sure they’re locked?”
His What do you think? look was answer enough. Before he got into bed, he paused for a fraction of a second, making Cara wonder if he felt any of the heavy sexual tension that she did. Then he was climbing in, as expressionless as always, and suddenly his muscular body was very, very close. She went still, not wanting to accidentally touch him but, at the same time, really wanting to intentionally touch him.
Quit being ridiculous, she scolded herself before turning onto her side so she was facing away from him. The problem with that, she soon discovered, was that she was now looking right at the French doors of doom. Not only was the darkness outside eerie and filled with possible dangers, but the flickering firelight created spooky, shifting shadows around the loft.
She closed her eyes, which helped shut down her imagination as far as murderous intruders went, but it made her so much more aware of the other person sharing the bed with her. Even though she was on the very edge of the bed, he was close enough that she could feel his heat on her back, radiating more warmth than the woodstove downstairs. He didn’t move, didn’t shift or squirm or even breathe audibly, and she found herself straining to hear him.
Even as aware of him as she was, she jolted, her eyes popping open, when a huge hand settled lightly on her upper arm.
“We’re safe here tonight,” he rumbled quietly. “No one’s out looking in this snow. Even if they were, they couldn’t find us. Go to sleep, and stop worrying.”
Her exhaled puff of air came out too fast. “I can’t just stop worrying because you order me to.”
His only answer was a pat on her arm before his hand withdrew. She immediately missed it, the way his broad palm covered most of the space between her shoulder and elbow. Even with her long sleeves, she could still feel the comforting heat of his hand. He was still and quiet again, and she was back to staring tensely at the shadows, which wasn’t helping her attempt to sleep. Giving up, she rolled to her back and then to her other side, making sure to stay in her little section of the too-narrow mattress.
“How long do you think we’ll be hiking tomorrow?” she asked, more to break the charged silence than anything else.
“Hard to tell.” He was staring at the lofted ceiling. Even in that position, flat on his back, he still looked huge to her. “Depends on how much snow we get, what the terrain’s like, what obstacles we encounter.”
“Obstacles like big rocks or obstacles like bears?”
In the dim, red-tinted firelight, she could see the corner of his mouth twitch. “Hopefully neither.”
“Hmm.” The way the past twenty-four hours had gone, she wasn’t going to rely on hope or luck. “I think I’ll expect the worst. That way, I’ll be happily surprised when we’re not dismembered and eaten.”
“Probably a good idea.”
Cara realized that despite the gory subject of their conversation, talking to Henry had relaxed her. Now that she was facing him, she couldn’t see any of the shadowed corners of the room, which helped settle her imagination as well. Having the bulky shape of his body under the covers was comforting, and she closed her eyes again—this time because she was truly tired, and not just to hide from scary things. To her surprise, she was actually relieved to be sleeping right next to Henry. Now that they were all tucked in, it didn’t seem like the unbearable temptation that she’d expected.